Navigating Google Consent V2

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FAQ

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In-depth for developers and technical marketers

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Introduction

Over the past months, Google has updated its policies to ensure compliance with the European Digital Markets Act (DMA). Two major changes impact advertisers on Google Ads. — Publishers on Google Ads are required to collect user consent on their website

Google now requires businesses advertising on Google Ads to collect explicit visitor consent for sharing data with Google. User consent should be passed to the tags installed on the website.

Google introduced two additional parameters to specify this consent. This is often referred to as ‘Consent Mode V2’. The visitor’s permission to share data with Google is now broken down into two subcategories:

1. Consent for using the user’s data for advertising purposes
2. Consent for personalizing ads based on the user’s data

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What steps should I take?

The Converge Google Ads and GA4 connections are fully compatible with any consent mode implementation. We ensure that the consent configuration is passed accurately to Google, both through the browser and server connections. As such, when your website has been instrumented with a Google consent implementation, either through a CMP or custom setup, the Converge connections will pick this up, and ensure that the data shared with Google contains the consent parameters.

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I am not collecting consent

When you are not collecting consent information, it is still unclear how Google will continue to process your data. In the EEA, you may be in violation of Google’s policies and certain Google Ads features may become unavailable.

In its current behavior, Google will still process, attribute, and optimize for the collected data. Over the coming months, it is uncertain whether Google will gradually discontinue consent-less events for EU visitors.

    <script>
        window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
        function gtag() { dataLayer.push(arguments) };
        gtag('consent', 'default', {
            'ad_storage': 'granted',
            'ad_user_data': 'granted',
            'ad_personalization': 'granted',
            'analytics_storage': 'granted'
        });
    </script>

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I already send consent data to Google

When you already have a cookie banner and consent solution in place, you should ensure that your CMP correctly implements Google consent mode. Below you can find out how to enable the integration for popular CMPs as well as how to verify the implementation.

Enabling Google consent mode V2

Most CMP platforms offer an integration with Google consent mode. For the below popular CMPs, you can enable it as follows:

• Cookie Script Go to your banner settings > Behavior tab > Frameworks section > Enable Google Consent Mode V2.
• Cookie Bot The Google consent mode integration is enabled by default. You should, however, ensure that a default consent state is explicitly added to your website. Please follow the instructions in the implementation section here.
• OneTrust On the cookie consent menu, go to Geolocation Rules, select a rule group and click edit on a rule to configure. From there, enable the Google Consent mode setting.
• Pandectes Shopify App In the Shopify app, under settings > integrations, enable the Google consent mode checkbox. Please select the “I have already installed Google Tag Manager and/or Google Analytics” option.
• Consentmo Shopify App Include the {% render 'gcm-integration-script' %} snippet in the head part of the theme.liquid and copy and paste the snippet provided in the help center in a new gcm-integration-script theme file under the snippets section.

Verifying the integration

You can verify the installation through the Google Tag Assistant. Google offers a guide to verify the implementation here.

You can run the following checks on your GA4 (G-XXXXXX) and Google Ads tags (AW-XXXXXX).

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Impact of consent mode on my data

Implementing consent mode inevitably limits your data collection and reporting accuracy. No data is collected for users for which consent was denied, whether by default or through an explicit deny-action.

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Google Analytics 4

In GA4, no data is reported for visitors who denied the analytics_storage consent. By default, Google does attempt to bridge this gap through behavioral modeling. This means that your GA4 data will no longer be 100% accurate, but rather an estimate under the constraints of consent mode. The modeling can be enabled/disabled under your property settings > Data display, by setting the Reporting identity to Blended. You can read more about this here.

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Google Ads

The same holds for Google Ads. Google cannot directly attribute conversions when consent is denied. Again, Google applies conversion modeling to try to compensate for the signal loss. The conversions reported in Google Ads include these modeled conversions.

Moreover, due to the Google consent V2 change, when the ad_personalization parameter was not granted, they could not use the conversion for dynamic remarketing.

Disclaimer: This guide provides general information. It is not intended as legal advice, and readers should consult with qualified counsel for advice regarding their specific circumstances. Converge disclaims any liability for actions taken based on the information provided in this post.